Family of 6-Year-Old Sandy Hook Survivor Trying to Sue State for $100 Million

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By: Charley Rogulewski/ December 30, 2012

The family of a surviving 6-year-old Sandy Hook Elementary School student is attempting to sue the state of Connecticut for a $100 million.

This is the first lawsuit to come out of the insanely tragic Dec. 14 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. that left 26 people, including 20 students ranging between 6 and 7 years of age, dead. It is not likely the last one either.

The unidentified 6-year-old behind the lawsuit, referred to as Jill Doe in the documents, “has sustained emotional and psychological trauma and injury, the nature and extent of which are yet to be determined,” reads the claim. The pending lawsuit alleges the trauma is a result of “cursing, screaming, and shooting” heard over the school intercom. The intercom had either been left on for morning announcements, or possibly turned on to warn teachers and students in the school when the 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza began his massacre.

The lawsuit was filed on Thursday by New Haven-based attorney Irv Pinsky, who said he was approached by the surviving victim’s family within the first week of the shooting. Connecticut has “sovereign immunity” against most lawsuits, which means it can’t be sued without the permission to go forward by the state’s claims commissioner. The commissioner’s office has not commented on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit blames the state’s Board of Education, Department of Education and Education Commissioner from failing to protect his client from “foreseeable harm,” providing a “safe school setting” or “an effective student safety emergency response plan and protocol.”

Pinsky says the lawsuit is not about money. “It’s about living in a world that’s safe,” he told The Associated Press on Saturday. “The answer is about protecting the kids.” He says he filed the timely notice in order to “freeze” the evidence before insurance adjusters can “shape” it.